An Olive Branch From the Dalai Lama

When the Olympics open on Friday, the Dalai Lama won’t be there. Each side put out feelers about his attendance and was tantalized by the idea, but in the end the mutual distrust was too great to overcome.

Tibet is one of the major shadows over the Olympics and over China’s rise as a great power, sullying its international image and triggering unrest that is likely to worsen in coming years. Yet that doesn’t have to be.

In June, I sat down for a private meeting with the Dalai Lama, and we talked at length about what kind of a deal he and China might be willing to accept. He was far more flexible and pragmatic about a resolution of the Tibet question than public statements had led me to believe. But he also wonders if his engagement policy with China is getting anywhere: If the stalemate continues, he may just give up on Beijing.

I have continued the discussion with Tibetan officials since then (just as I have had similar discussions with Chinese officials), and China’s perception of the Dalai Lama as sticking rigidly to old positions is mistaken. The Dalai Lama recognizes that time is running out, and he is signaling a willingness to deal — comparable to the way President Richard Nixon sent signals to Beijing that he was ready to rethink the China-U.S. relationship before his visit to China in 1972.

One signal is this: For the first time, the Dalai Lama is willing to state that he can accept the socialist system in Tibet under Communist Party rule. This is something that Beijing has always demanded, and, after long discussion, the Dalai Lama has agreed to do so.

“The main thing is to preserve our culture, to preserve the character of Tibet,” the Dalai Lama told me. “That is what is most important, not politics.”

That is a significant concession, and China must now reciprocate. The present track of talks between the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department and the Dalai Lama’s representatives will never get anywhere. The only hope is for Beijing to pluck Tibetan affairs from the United Front officials and hold direct talks between the Dalai Lama and either President Hu Jintao or Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, negotiating until a deal is reached.

In one sign that Chinese leaders are also thinking creatively about new approaches, Beijing secretly raised the idea of the Dalai Lama visiting China and participating in a memorial service for those who died in May’s Sichuan earthquake. That was bold; the Dalai Lama has not entered China since 1959. Both sides should now aim for a visit to mark the earthquake’s six-month anniversary in November, followed by serious negotiations.

It’s possible to devise an agreement that leaves both China and the Tibetans much better off — if they hurry. Once the Dalai Lama dies — he is 73 — then a deal could be impossible for another generation because no one would be able to unify the Tibetan people behind a new plan. By then much of Tibet is likely to have been drowned in a sea of Chinese migration, and some frustrated young Tibetans may have turned to terrorism. In my interviews in Tibetan areas of China this year, young people told me repeatedly of their frustration that the Dalai Lama is too conciliatory and that a violent liberation movement would be necessary after his death.

Here is one plausible outline of what a settlement might look like, although both sides would surely flinch at some terms:

The Dalai Lama would dial back to some degree on demands for political autonomy for Tibet, while the Chinese government would offer more cultural and religious freedoms. There would be no “one country, two systems” approach as there is for Hong Kong, and the existing Communist Party control mechanisms would remain in place.

As the Dalai Lama has said, he would play no political role after a settlement, but he would be free to enter and leave China with his aides and to communicate freely. He could travel within Tibetan areas, in coordination with the Public Security Ministry, to ensure that there are no upheavals. China would also release all Tibetans imprisoned for political offenses — though not for crimes of violence — upon the signing of a deal.

Photo

Nicholas D. KristofCredit
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Much more sensitive is the Dalai Lama’s call for all Tibetan areas to be placed under one administration. That is usually interpreted to mean a huge expansion of the political boundaries of the Tibet Autonomous Region to encompass about one-fourth of China, taking in parts of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces. Chinese leaders were open to redrawing the boundaries in the past, but today China is as determined not to make such changes as Tibetans are to get them.

One way to bridge that gulf would be to create a Regional Authority for Tibetan Affairs that would administer key aspects of life in all Tibetan areas, particularly education, culture and religion. Already, for example, Tibetan-language school textbooks are harmonized in different provinces, and this regional authority would likewise oversee practical aspects of life in areas with Tibetan populations, all under Chinese law. This would allow Tibetan areas to be placed under a single administration without changing political boundaries.

On the Chinese side, the crucial concession would be to restrict migration into all Tibetan areas, inside and outside the “autonomous region,” through China’s existing system of residence permits. The Chinese authorities would stop issuing resident permits, known as hukou, to non-Tibetans for any Tibetan area, and would grant temporary residence permits, or zhanzhuzheng, only when no Tibetan is available to take a job. This would halt the flood of Han Chinese into Tibetan areas.

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The Chinese government would also ease restrictions on monasteries and on the intake of monks, and curb the mandatory “patriotic education” campaigns that only leave Tibetans feeling less patriotic. Young boys would be allowed to enter monasteries, but the monasteries would then be obliged to teach the boys the Chinese state curriculum, including Chinese language, in addition to religious education.

The Tibetan language would also be used in government offices in all Tibetan areas, alongside Chinese, and there would be a new push (as there was in the 1980s) to increase the proportion of ethnic Tibetans holding government and party positions. The upshot would be a Tibet that remains politically under the control of the Communist Party. It would not be a democracy or a multiparty system, but it would be able to preserve its character indefinitely as a distinctly Tibetan and Buddhist region, both inside and outside the formal Tibet Autonomous Region. And Tibet can be free only if it is first preserved.

For the Chinese, such an agreement would resolve the Tibet question and end an international embarrassment, as well as prevent the rise of protests and terrorism for decades to come.

My conversations with both sides make me think that this is achievable. The Dalai Lama recognizes that his past efforts haven’t worked in the face of increasingly hard-line Chinese policies, so he is willing to try new approaches.

As for China, it has raised Tibetan standards of living impressively over the last 20 years, but its repression has lost Tibetan hearts and minds. Vicious Chinese denunciations of the Dalai Lama, and particularly the contempt that some local Chinese officials display toward Tibetan culture, exacerbate the resentment. As a start, China should remove the hot-headed Communist Party secretary for Tibet, Zhang Qingli, who brightens any room by leaving it.

The Dalai Lama knows that other peacemakers have broken the ice with bold initiatives to prove their seriousness; we discussed Sadat’s visit to Israel as one such move. So the Dalai Lama is reaching out. That is one reason he agreed that I could report his acceptance of Communist Party rule.

“On account of Buddhism’s emphasis on rational thinking, the Tibetans are capable of embracing reality by accepting some of the de facto situation on the ground,” added Lodi Gyari, the Dalai Lama’s envoy to talks with China.

The senior Chinese leadership should respond by expressing serious interest in talks at the presidential or prime ministerial level. In ancient days, the Olympics were a time to suspend conflict. In that spirit, the two sides should get to work to prepare for a visit by the Dalai Lama in November, followed by top-level negotiations aimed at a historic resolution of the Tibet question.